A wide variety of electrical connectors have been designed for terminating flat cables or circuits, such as flat flexible cables, flexible printed circuits or the like. A typical connector for flat circuits includes a dielectric housing molded of plastic material, for instance. The housing has an elongated opening or slot for receiving an end of the flat circuit which has generally parallel, laterally spaced conductors exposed across the end. A plurality of terminals are mounted in the housing and are spaced laterally along the slot, with contact portions of the terminals engageable with the laterally spaced conductors of the flat circuit. An actuator often is movably mounted on the housing for movement between a first position whereat the flat circuit is freely insertable into the slot and a second position whereat the actuator clamps the circuit in the housing and biases the circuit against the contact portions of the terminals.
In a widely used type of flat circuit connector, the flat circuit is insertable into a slot at the front of the connector housing, and the actuator is pivotally mounted on the housing generally at the top, front thereof overlying the slot in a closed position of the actuator. Problems are encountered with these types of flat circuit connectors if an operator pulls outwardly on a terminated flat circuit, especially if the pulling forces are inclined upwardly. The flat circuit has a tendency to pivot the actuator upwardly away from its closed position. This loosens the connections between the contact pads on the flat circuit and the contact portions of the terminals on the connector housing and, thereby, adversely affects or destroys the electrical connections therebetween.
In order to solve these problems, attempts have been made to provide anti-pulling means on the connector as shown in Japan Patent No. 3029985; Japan Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-45527; and Japan Patent Laid-Open No. 10-189174. The anti-pulling means is provided by anti-pulling projections which prevent displacement of the flat circuit under the actuator when the flat circuit is pulled outwardly and upwardly. The anti-pulling projections extend horizontally inwardly, generally toward each other, from opposite sides of the opening or slot in the housing which receives the end of the flat circuit. These anti-pulling projections cause further problems in that they interfere with the insertion of the flat circuit into the opening or slot. Since many flat circuit connectors are mounted on printed circuit boards, the flat circuit must be inserted into the connector very close to and parallel to the circuit board and the bottom of the connector housing in order to get under the projections, which is quite difficult with miniaturized connectors. The present invention is directed to solving these problems.